ContextWeb New CPM Pricing Model

Michael Phillips

Posted on 3.18.2007

Advertising network ContextWeb has announced a new pricing model where publishers, not advertisers, set their own CPM prices.

"Advertisers and publishers both need the ability to control pricing—it is high time advertising networks begin to shoulder the risk of making the right match between buyer and seller instead of pushing this risk off onto the web publishing community," says Anand Subramanian, CEO of ContextWeb. "ContextWeb is freeing the publisher from the drudgery and randomness of receiving a percentage of what the ad network decides to pay," he says. "The voice of the publisher should matter—when advertisers set their own price why can't the publishers?"

As of now, then new model will be available to the 250 comScore-ranked publisher sites and/or sites that generate more than 10 million impressions per month. But it will be interesting to see how it works out and if this model starts a new wave of advertising models for smaller sites.